1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a motor vehicle door lock, and more specifically to a motor vehicle door lock with latching elements such as a latch and ratchet with a lock mechanism. The lock mechanism has a drive with a drive motor and an actuating element and the ratchet able to be raised by the drive. Also, this invention relates generally to a drive for a motor vehicle door lock with at least one displaceable operating element such as a ratchet.
2. Description of Related Art
A motor located in motor vehicle door locks can be utilized to perform an opening assist function (i.e., a lifting of the ratchet) and a central interlock function. For implementation of these functions triggered by a motor, a drive, a drive motor and an actuating element are employed. An displaceable operating element, assigned to each respective function, can be actuated. For example, in the case of the opening assist function, the displaceable operating element is the ratchet of the motor vehicle door lock.
In order to minimize the cost of circuitry associated with the control of the motion of the drive while ensuring low fault susceptibility, the aforementioned drive is increasingly employed in a blocking operation. This is shown, for example, by the motor vehicle door lock in U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,253 which corresponds to published European Patent Application EP 0 811 101 B1. Here, the actuating element of the drive has a driver journal, which in an actuating process, presses a ratchet into a raised position. Towards the end of the actuating process, the driver journal engages the ratchet so that the drive motor is blocked. As a result, the motor current rises measurably and the drive motor is turned off after a predetermined delay time.
One problem with the known motor vehicle door lock is that the blocking of the drive is associated with an unwanted striking noise. Furthermore, the application of a comparatively high torque to the actuating element leads to a higher possibility of jamming during aforementioned blocking operation.